Spell My Name with an "S"

aka: Real Life

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The English Romanization of his name was a debated topic for quite some time, with interpretations including "Violenjiger", "Violent Jiger", "Violent Chigger", "Violen Jig-er", "Violin Juggler", "Bio Ranger Iga", "Valium Chugger", and "Crazy Engrish Fun-Man". The publication of The Ark II finally provided us with an official spelling.

This trope describes characters whose names are almost never spelled consistently, usually because of transliteration issues. This tends to happen in Anime and Japanese video games that haven't been officially translated into English, although it also crops up in other languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. Situations include anything from drama between vowel additions to unique-cipher dropping, due to phoneme sets and writing systems. English, for example, is famous for many ways and rules of spelling (e.g., Americans generally dropping extra vowels such as in the word color, as compared with its British spelling colour), despite having far fewer actual sounds they represent. Japanese has separate vowel-heavy syllabic and ideographic writing systems; since the latter overlaps with Chinese, sometimes there is a question of whether a name should be transliterated from the Japanese or the Chinese reading. Spanish has several familiar looking letter combinations intended to be pronounced in specific ways. Complicating the issue is that some names simply become popular enough in other languages that they're modified to fit them better, and you can't be sure if it's actually intended to be meaningful. Another complication is when the name is only ever shown in modified form, meaning we simply have to guess.

This trope is omnipresent with Greek. The convention in English is not to transliterate, but instead to Latinize, Greek nouns and names. Hence nigh unpronounceable Latinizations like "Cynoscephalae" instead of "Kynoskefali" for Greek Κυνὸςκεφαλαη, "dog's head".

While it may apply to some folders this trope shows up on, this page DOES NOT include minor differences in romanization systems, such as the various methods of indicating long vowels in Japanese, or the use of the apostrophe to indicate syllabic nasals.

Contrast My Nayme Is, which is the intentional misspelling of one's name.

Examples with their own subpages

Other examples:

Brivolbn7q Regan: "Anyway I met his woman, her name was ah, Amy, you know, so I go 'Oh, A-M-Y?' She goes 'No, A-Y-M-I-E'. 'Ughhh... I have to take a nap! I'm Brian, B-R-I-V-O-L-B-N, the number 7, the letter Q—'Brennemenahgah!!!' Look at my name tag, it's, it's big."

Comic Books

In Over the Hedge, the name of Verne's nephew constantly alternated between Plushie and Plushy.

In Garfield, Pooky the teddy bear's name was misspelled "Pookie" at least once.

In earlier strips of Dogs of C-Kennel, Will's name was originally Willy, before finally just going by Will.

X-Wing Series: The various weird spellings of Klivian, lampshaded by the man himself.

Tom Poes: Professor Zbygniew Prlwytzkofsky, who specifies his name with the following non-helpful clue: It's spelled with a "z" in the middle.

The original Bat-Girl, currently known as Flamebird, was originally Elizabeth "Betty" Kane. Starting post-Crisis her name has been written as "Bette".

Some writers change how you spell the name of Dinah Drake, the original Black Canary, because she shares her name with her daughter (Dinah Lance).

In one panel of Jem and the Holograms Eric's name is written as "Erik" on his coffee cup. This is possibly an in-series version of this.

In one issue of Werewolf by Night, Buck Cowan's last name is misspelled as Cohen. The spelling of Jack's father's first name also alternates between Philip and Phillip.

The name of Diabolik's character Elisabeth Gay has been mispelled as Elizabeth, Elisabet, and even Elisabetta (the Italian equivalent). Also, Eva Kant's last name is often mispronounced "Kent" by readers.

Fan Works

Parodied in Those Lacking Spines, where when facing down a rabid group of Fangirls the main characters invoke this trope by getting them to fight over the spelling of Final Fantasy VII character names, ranging from the classic Aeris/Aerith to eventually Gratuitous Japanese like Vincent/Binsento.

In many Harry Potter fanfics, this tends to be the norm: the authors write "Kreature" instead of "Kreacher", "Virginia" instead of "Ginevra" (admittedly, that one was not known until the seventh book came out), and there have been cases of "Author" instead of "Arthur" (Weasley) and, memorably, "Manava" instead of "Minerva" (McGonagall). "Griffindor" instead of Gryffindor is also painfully common.

The backdrop for the Cadance Of Cloudsdale story A Princess By Any Other Name, detailing the ridiculous lengths that Princess Cadence will have to go through to change her name to Princess Cadance (which is infinitely better than her old, identical-sounding name, she insists). Hilarity Ensues.

In Glee fic, Brittany's name is regularly misspelled. "Britney" is the most common misspelling, though more imaginative alternatives have been known to show up from time to time.

Zack from Bones is very prone to this in fics. It probably doesn't help that Fanfiction.Net lists him as "Zach A." Also there have been a few cases of his first name being mentioned as "Zachariah"—most likely a Mondegreen of his first and middle name, Zachary Uriah.

The Slender Man ficBy the Fire's Light pays tribute to the many variations on Slender Man's name, including Slender Man, Slenderman, and slenderman at different points in the story coming from different characters.

In Celestia VS Cleverbot, Cleverbot misspells Celestia's full name and title as "Princes celestia" in the original conversation (chapter 2).

Many fics of the show Teen Titans will have Starfire's nickname be "Kori" (her real name is Koriand'r) despite it always having been "Kory" in the comics. Think of it how Jennifer is shortened to "Jenny" and not "Jenni".

Typically in Gensokyo 20XXV, Yume Ni's name is spelled "Yume Ni", however, her concept art has it spelled "Yume (Ni)". In that line, we get Tenshi, whose name is occasionally spelled with an "ie" on the end, rather than just an "i". Justified, as "Tenshie" is an alternate spelling of it and the writer probably spelled it as such to guide her pronunciation and in the case of Yume Ni's name, it could be due to Japanese naming conventions (where her name would just be "Yume" or, otherwise, "Niyume")

From Kill la Kill AU, we get Rei's last name Hōōmaru, which, alternatively is spelled "Hououmaru". Apparently, her last name is hard spell and is often misspelled as "Houmaru". In terms of alternative spellings, we get Ragyo's name being spelled as "Ragyou" and Ryuuko's name being spelled as "Ryuko" and her nickname Riley, being spelled as "Rylie".

Played with with Undermon, where Toriel is actually spelt Torial. Which, considering the Aura which she has due to the history of the fic, hints at which Legendary she has the Aura of.

In Children of an Elder God, the authors often misspelled Asuka's surname, writing “Langely” instead of “Langley”. It's lampshaded in chapter 21: Shinji's spiders spun a heart-shaped web with Asuka's name written on it. Asuka says it's very sweet... but her name is misspelled.

In Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings, Executive Meddling led to Saruman's name being changed to Aruman, because the studio thought that viewers would confuse his name with "Sauron". However they only used the new name about half the time, making everything that much more confusing.

The potential for confusion between their names is actually noted in the universe—while viewing an 'S' painted on an enemy's shield, one of the characters wonders if it stands for Sauron; another character quickly points out that Sauron's minions don't call him by name, and besides, Sauron never uses elf-runes. So it could only be Saruman.

Fievel in An American Tail, who is listed as "Feivel" in the beginning credits of the first movie, which is the actual Yiddish spelling. The spelling was changed to "Fievel" to avoid confusing American audiences who might otherwise pronounce it as "Fay-vel", but in other countries where the movie was released the "Feivel" spelling was left intact. Ironic because that's actually how it's pronounced in Yiddish too.

There's Prince Hans' All There in the Manual last name, Westerguard... except considering the fact that Jennifer Lee never directly stated in her post how to spell it, it's been spelled as Westerguard, Westergard, and even Westergaard. Considering she didn't correct the poster who asked the question though, it can be assumed that Westerguard is meant to be correct.

The country Elsa rules, Arendelle, is often misspelled by fans.

One of the first examples may be the Sorcerer from Fantasia, all due to his name having been only a code-name between animators for decades, and popping up for the first time to the public in a Japanese video game. Is his real name Yen Sid, or Yensid?

Bambi's girlfriend, Faline, is often subjected to this, having her name frequently misspelled as "Feline".

Films - Live-Action

In Foreign Correspondent, the Deadpan Snarker Brit reporter has the utterly ridiculous last name of "ffolliot". Yes, two lower-case Fs. This is a rare affectation among certain upper-class British families, other examples including ffrench and fforbes. The most plausible explanation is that for a period in early modern written English, there was no proper upper-case F, and so the lower-case f was written twice in situations such as names where it had to be clear that the capital was intended. Some people then kept the ff even after distinct upper and lower-case versions of F existed, either out of tradition or out of legal paranoia that if their name wasn't exactly as written in old legal documents they might somehow lose property or privileges.

Angirasu/Angilas/Angurus/Anguirus (the last finally being registered as a trademark in the 90s).

Kingu Gidora/Ghidrah/Ghidorah; also Death Ghidorah/Desgidora.

In almost all English versions except Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993), the monster Radon (from "pteranodon") is called Rodan. Speculation as to why it was changed includes confusion with the element radon and a conflict with the name of a British brand of soap; nobody's exactly sure why.

And referred to exclusively as "Gojira" in the accompanying novelization.

In Animal Crackers, Captain Spaulding has the first name of "Jeffrey" in the film credits and in the script of the play, but "Geoffrey" in a newspaper headline also displayed at the start of the film. (Spaulding's name originally lacked the U, but was changed to avoid coincidental resemblance to persons living or dead.)

Randall Graves is not a clerk at RST Video. Randal Graves, however, is.

Depending on the source, the heroine of King Kong spells her name as either Ann or Anne.

Same goes for the heroine of Legend (1985)—her name is either spelled Lili or Lily, and not even the film's own fandom is sure which is correct.

The tablet owner from Night at the Museum's name is popularly spelled Ahkmenrah, but other spellings exists as well. In the Nintendo DS Licensed Game of the movie's sequel, they added the spelling "Akmenrah" and "Akhmenrah", which was mentioned during the beginning, when Jedediah called Larry on the phone.

Some of the rip-offs of Emmanuelle spelled her name as "Emanuelle" to avoid law-suits for copyright infringement.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's films are often victim of spelling errors to people unfamiliar with Polish naming conventions. Whenever you read an article about this director have fun checking out whether his name is always spelled correctly.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe is known for being remarkably consistent and continuous, as expanded universes go. However, there are plenty of times, particularly early on, when authors don't bother looking up things like whether characters have already had first/last names or specific spellings. This is usually retconned by giving some characters either two first names or a middle name. Derek "Hobbie" Klivian, whose name was frequently misspelled "Klivan", lampshades this in Starfighters of Adumar by telling a reporter this.

Derek: Everyone calls me Hobbie. And I'll get back to you on my last name. Lots of people misspell it.

Night Watch: in the books, the head of the Day Watch is romanised as Zabulon, while the movies spell it Zavulon. They also can't agree on Egor or Yegor.

Different volumes of the series also variably spell the name of the head of the Night Watch as Gesar or Geser.

Word of God says: "I took 'Mythological Dictionary', opened it randomly. There was Geser. I read the discription and it kinda fit. Second time it came 'Zavulon'. Honestly"

Another Asimov short story, "Unto the Fourth Generation", is centered on variations of Levkovich (Lewkovich, Lefkovitz, and so on) and a peculiar form of sort-of time travel. Mostly, it's about family, as the name suggests.

The title character of the Anne of Green Gables series is constantly reminding people that she prefers her named to be spelled with an E. Apparently, it looks more dignified. She is so adamant that at various points, she will introduce herself as "Anne Shirley. Anne spelled with an 'E'". Of course, this is after she requests to be called Cordelia....

The Badass Spaniard's name in the book The Princess Bride is written "Inigo Montoya", thus the preferred spelling in the English-speaking world. A Spaniard will be quick to point out that it should be written "Íñigo" (and in fact, Inigo would be pronounced like e-nee-goh, while for Íñigo, you stress the Í, and you pronounce the ñ like in... um... thñis). And will write it as Íñigo.

Iñigo if he/she's not bothering with the accents. Inigo only if the keyboard is broken or something.

For browsers who can't display this name correctly: Inigo is properly written as: I with acute accent, N with tilde, I, G, O.

Whenever the main character of Bill the Galactic Hero interacts with those of higher rank than him, they insist on calling him "Bil" because only officers have two L's.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, characters have archaic or unusual spellings of common English names, such as Jaime (Jamie), Eddard (Edward), Brynden (Brendan), and many more.

On the back cover of the Petsitters book The Cat Burglar, the cat's name is spelled as "Sophia", but the book itself spells the name as "Sofia".

The Belgariad has an in-universe example. Dryad names always begin with an X, but the names of the two dryads Ce'Nedra and Ce'Vanne don't. It's later explained as a quirk of the Tolnedran dialect, which turns the hard "kse" into a soft "se" in both cases, and the names should rightly be Xe'Nedra and Xe'Vanne.

In Girl Waits With Gun any time a villain or reporter writes about Fleurette they spell it wrongly. Of note because this is based on a real story and those are not in the list of changes the author made.

The beelike species from "The Web Planet" has been spelled in official materials as "Menoptera" (most common) and "Menoptra" (what was used in the script).

The giant flamethrower-wielding robots from "The Chase" have been spelled as both Mechanoids and Mechonoids in BBC material. This is partially because they were originally named Mechons (pronounced 'meekon') in the script, but the name and pronunciation was changed due to phonetic similarity to The Mekon, leaving the real spelling ambiguous.

There are multiple possible ways to spell the surnames of the Second Doctor's companions Jamie and Zoe (the credits only show their first names). Jamie's surname has largely stabilised as "McCrimmon", but Zoe's has swung back and forth between "Heriot" and "Herriot" over the years. The BBC's own Doctor Who episode guide uses bothspellings on different pages. Zoe's also inconsistently Zoe and Zoë.

In Stargate SG-1, Colonel O'Neill has very specifically stated that his name is spelled with two Ls on several occasions. At one point he specifically addressed why he was so concerned about it. Apparently, there's another Colonel Jack O'Neil in the fictional version of the USAF, one with "No Sense of Humor". This is an in-joke and lampshading of the fact that Kurt Russell's version of the character in the movie (spelled with one L in the credits) was significantly less funny.

For the record, the name of Daniel's wife in the movie was Shau'ri, while in the series was spelled Sha're. The pronunciation changed accordingly.

This is because Michael Shanks (the actor playing Daniel) had trouble pronouncing the diphthong in "Shau'ri". Strange, considering Daniel is supposed to be a linguist fluent in dozens of languages.

Jack similarly corrects the spelling of Teal'c's name during the first episode following the series pilot.

Major Dr. Janet Fraiser, the base doctor, says the trope name verbatim in a featurette on the DVD release of Season Three. (Yes, this does count: the featurette is framed with the audience in the role of a consultant for the Pentagon, and Gen. Hammond and Dr. Fraiser are in character.)

In one episode, the characters correct an official report on the aliens by claiming that the word is spelled "Goa'uld", not "Gould"... except they almost always pronounce it "Gould", except for the resident alien Teal'c. Even the local linguist pronounces it incorrectly.

Engine Sentai Go-onger has some possible variations on the name of the species of biomechanical creatures that act as the Rangers' familiars/Humongous Mecha. Most commonly rendered simply as Engines, the name is actually a bilingual pun on the English word "engine" & the Japanese word En-Jin, roughly meaning "Fire God". Another possible rendering is Endjinn or N-Djinn, which arguably conveys the pun better to a western audience. The full version of the ending song actually spells out "E-N-G-I-N-E, Engine" confirming that "Engine" is the official spelling.

It's either Wesley Wyndam-Pryce or Wesley Wyndham-Price... or possibly Wesley Wyndam-Price. Just take your pick...

Warren's surname was never seen written down on screen, or included in credits or publicity material. The comic spin-offs have now confirmed it as "Mears", although at least one published shooting script had previously given it as "Meers", and much fanon had it as "Meres" to make it a Punny Name for a character defined by his rage at being a "mere" human.

In 24, the name of Jack Bauer's brother was spelled "Graham" on the show's captions before the official website revealed that it's actually "Graem".

The Survivors frequently slaughter the spellings of each others' names at Tribal Council. To give one example, Sonja Christopher's name was misspelled as "Souna" on the first ever Tribal Council vote.

Fans of The Kids in the Hall disagree bitterly over the recurring garage band, Rod Torfulson/Torkelson/Torfasson/etc.'s Armada Featuring Herman Menderchuck.

Kamen Rider Kiva: The official spelling (according to Kamen Rider Decade) is Garulu, though sometimes Garuru is seen. Some fansubs also spell the name of the enemies as "Fangaia", despite the etymology (the correct spelling is Fangire, a portmanteau of "fang" and "vampire").

The name of half of the titular hero has gone from Phillip (in early publicity material) to Philippe (in the data stream that surrounds him when he enters the Gaia Library) to Philip (the spelling they ultimately seem to have settled upon.)

The Combos in Kamen Rider OOO can be tricky, especially when they're taken from the Japanese (katakana) spellings of English words - i.e. "Lion, Tora, Cheetah" becomes something that is literally pronounced "Ratorātā", and officially spelled "Latorartar", because the first syllable of "lion" in Japanese is "ra" ("ra-i-on"). Something like "Litoratah" (Lion, Tora, Cheetah) would fit the etymology more closely, if not the pronunciation. Then there's the combo made with the Taka, Kujaku and Condor medals, which is officially spelled "Tajadol" even though it's clearly supposed to be "Tajador". Note that Bandai actually officially refers to the Condor medal as the Condol medal. Note also that they have a history of doing this, such as using "Engine Brade" or "Medajaribur". Regardless, many Wikis, including the official Kamen Rider Wiki, use the spelling "Tajadol", despite it clearly being an error, because that's the "official" spelling used by Bandai. Then there's the arguments over whether to spell the Combos with CamelCase (like TaToBa) or normally (like Tatoba).

Every incarnation of the Degrassi franchise spells it as one word. Real Life De Grassi Street in Toronto is two words, capital "G". The real street signs are used in establishing shots from time to time.

No one ever decided whether the Alpha Bitch's name in Lizzie McGuire was Kate Sanders (with a short a sound) or Kate Saunders (Sawn-ders). Every other episode, it was pronounced differently and her name was never listed the same way in the credits. Ethan Kraft/Ethan Craft is similar in this way.

Saturday Night Live once did a Weekend Update bit where they listed all the acceptable spellings for the Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, owing to the fact that no two newscasts or newspaper ever spelled it the same way.

The Thick of It has Ollie/Olly Reeder: early episodes credit Chris Addison as playing "Olly Reeder", which is later changed to "Oliver Reeder", while The Missing Do SAC Files has him sign himself as Ollie.

Juken Sentai Gekiranger gets this a bit. What's the name of the Gekirangers' master? Is it Shafu (which TV Nihon's subs use) or Xia Fu (which the RangerWiki uses)? Then there's Mele/Mere and Rio/Lio—being that they're chameleon-style and lion-style users respectively, Mele and Lio would make most sense, but TVNihon's subs use Mele and Rio, and RangerWiki uses Mere and Rio. (Strangely enough, no one ever uses "Leo" for the latter, despite the fact that it's both a proper name (though not a Japanese one) and actually means "lion".) In fact, TVNihon's subs use BOTH spellings—when introducing himself (in the style of the Super Sentai roll call), they use "Lio", but every other time it's "Rio". Ron/Long is another case—they started out using Ron, then switched to Long after a few episodes. Heck, this can even be done with the titular martial art—is it JyuKen or Ju(u)Ken? Retsu's name is also spelled Retu on the RangerWiki (which is a different way of romanising the kana of his name).

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger had this with one of the Monsters of the Week, Jealoushitto. His name is meant to be a combination of the English and Japanese words for "jealousy" - "jerashī" + "shitto" = "jerashitto". However, the ambiguous kana led to a LOT of different spellings, including Jealousto, Jealousyto, Zealoushitto (since the katakana for "jealous" can also be read as "zealous", and both sort of fit the character), Zealousto, etc.

In Babylon 5, the pak'ma'ra spell the name of their species in all lower case letters. Not only fans, but the production crew themselves have often unwittingly capitalized it to match the way that every other species spells their name.

"In all of my scripts, I always spelled pak’ma’ra in all lower case letters. Our script coordinator kept changing it to Pak’ma’ra. Finally, I had to tell her to stop changing it. She wanted to know why. I said, “Because that’s how they spell it.” It’s great being able to win arguments by citing non-existent rules of punctuation created by equally non-existent species." —JMS

Supernatural has a case of this with the angel Castiel. The fandom overwhelmingly spells his nickname as 'Cas' with one 's' while both scripts and a story being written about the character in-universe have it with two.

Joan's original last name in Elementary. She's "Joan Watson" due to her mother remarrying when she was a child. Closed captioning has spelled the surname as both "Yun" and "Wen". "Yeun" has also been used as a way of spelling it.

Can happen sometimes with Game of Thrones fans who didn't read the novels the show is based on. Go to an online discussion the show for non-book readers and see how people try to spell names like Daenerys (or any of the Targaryens), Jaqen H'ghar, Cersei, etc. Even fairly basic names like Jaime (often spelled "Jamie") and Jon Snow (often spelled "John") get this.

Music

The Japanese band Bow Wow later switched the Latin spelling of their name to Vow Wow. This might have been to avoid confusion with another band named Bow Wow Wow.

Most of her CDs Romanize her name "Shéna Ringö", but she's gone through plenty of other Romanizations, so almost nobody humors her and instead goes for the literal Romanization, Shiina Ringo.

How many times has the media spelled Meat Loaf's name as one word, "Meatloaf"? Don't ask.

Keri Hilson, Kerri Hilson, or Kerry Hilson? Someone might even go as far to spell it Kari Hilson. The first of those names is correct.

Isao Tomita's album Snowflakes Are Dancing and its title track appear to be named for a translation back into English of the Japanese name for this track. Debussy's name for it was The Snow Is Dancing.

A more subtle example is Golliwogs' Cakewalk from the same album. Debussy named this piece Golliwogg's Cakewalk, referring specifically to the heroic character created by Florence Kate Updike, and not the generic archetype (particularly not Enid Blyton's racist version).

There have been so many different spellings about how to write *NSYNC's name, that they finally had to comment on it on Twitter. Spellings range from "NSNYNC", "NYSYNC", "N'SYNC", "n syc*", "N sytc", and it goes on...

Fall Out Boy's name is frequently written as "Fallout Boy" or even "Falloutboy".

The Belgian rock band dEUS spells its name with a small d and capital letters.

It's Twenty One Pilots, not 21 Pilots. When someone just puts the numbers rather than spelling them out, it's a sign that they're not into the band or don't know much about them. You can easily tell that an interviewer has not done their research if the video title refers to them incorrectly, and only the newest fans that have just discovered their music spell it wrong - the older ones all know better.

Despite being American The Neighbourhood doesn't spell their name "The Neighborhood". Tell that to fans though.

Country Music singer Janie Fricke couldn't seem to make up her mind as to whether her last name was spelled "Fricke" or "Frickie". Her albums used both spellings.

ABBA: Because the group's name is an acronym of their initials, it should be spelled "ABBA" (all caps), not "Abba".

Also, Frida's name (Anni-Frid Lyngstad) was frequently misspelled, even at press conferences.

Double-s Andersson (Benny) vs. single-s Anderson (Stig).

K. T. Oslin's 1990 single "Mary and Willie" is sometimes missing its final E. The album spells it "Willi", but Joel Whitburn's Hot Country Songs book spells it "Willie".

Myths & Religion

Nobody seems to know whether "Xenu" or "Xemu" is the correct spelling. At least, nobody who's willing to talk about it.

The name of Óðinn/Odin/Oden/Woden/Wotan is spelled differently in basically every Germanic language. This is in part due to Norse having a distinct letter ð for the voiced "th" sound, transliterated in modern English sometimes as th and sometimes as d, and in most Scandinavian languages as dh or d. And the Romans called him Mercury

There's also Freyja/Freya/Freia/Freja/Frøya/Freyia.

Who is not, however, Frija/Frea/Frigg/Frige/Frigga. (Usually. They are conflated in some versions.)

God. He's OK with being called God, since it's clear that He's the only one to which a Christian or Jew would refer, but... YHVH or YHWH? Is the name more closely Anglicized as Yahweh, Jehovah, or something in between? It's not supposed to be pronounced. Nobody but the high priest knew how the word is pronounced, and even modern religious Jews misspell it on purpose because they're not allowed to write it. There is some debate about what exactly the word means, but it's likely related to the root 'to exist'.

YHWH/YHVH are the same transliteration, since the letter that was pronounced "w" in ancient Hebrew has changed into a "v" sound in most modern Hebrew pronunciations (some exceptions exist, e.g., Yemenite pronunciation preserves the "w"). Vowels weren't introduced in Hebrew until the Middle Ages, but we're pretty sure "Yaweh" is correct because we have Greek magic papyri with invocations to one "Iaoue". (The Greek alphabet doesn't have letters for Y or an H that isn't at the beginning of the word.) "Jehovah" is a Christian butchering of the name by a scribe, unfamiliar with the custom of taking the name you substitute in prayer ("Adonai") and putting its vowels on YHVH as a reminder, smooshing the two words together. Also, Jews aren't forbidden from writing God's name...they're forbidden from *destroying* something with God's name written on it, however, which makes writing God's name on something kind of a big deal since near anything you write is eventually going to be destroyed.

It's quite often translated in modern versions of the Bible as "I am".

Similarly, retellings of the Robin Hood stories often disagree on the spelling of the surname of Robin's Evil Counterpart Guy of Gisbourne/Gisborne/Gisburn etc. Will Scarlet's real family name usually begins with S, but can be Scarlock/Scathelock/Stukely/Stukeley/you-name-it. There's also the Marian/Marion issue. Of course, even among literate people, spelling of names was fairly inconsistent in the middle ages.

The obscure Catholic Saint Winwaloe. Or possibly Guénolé, Winwallus, Guingalois, or Vinguavally. Or maybe Ouignoualey, or Bennoc, or dozens more.

The Greek names of figures of Classical Mythology may be subject to this, as Greek has a different alphabet from most other European languages such as English.

The name of the legendary hero of Greek mythology can be spelled either as Herakles or Heracles. That Other Wiki seems to prefer the latter, as does the Glory of Heracles series.

The three-headed guard dog of the underworld the above had to slay as part of his labors can be romanized as either Cerberus or Kerberos, with the latter being used for a computer network authentication protocol.

There are multiple accepted ways to write "Hanukkah" in Roman letters.

There are dozens of different ways to spell "wendigo". About the only consistent traits between the spellings are that most of them start with a W and are three syllables long.

The holy book of Islam, given that Arabic script doesn't transliterate very precisely to the Roman alphabet, has been identified as the Quran, Qur'an, Koran, Al-Coran, Coran, Kuran, or Al-Qur'an, among others.

Pro Wrestling

The later is more commonly used by Spanish sources themselves, yet English sources seem to be divided on whether it should be written technico or técnico...

The Japanese wrestler Ebetaroh...or is it Ebessan? Kikutaro? Promotions will often switch between these and other variations every time he makes an appearance, sometimes as part of a Running Gag.

Princesa Sugei is best known among English speakers as Princess Sugey but also known as Princesa Sugey, Princesa Sujey, Princesa Sugeth, Princess Sujei, Princesa Sujeith, Princess Sugehit and every other combination of those letters. Again, this is a Spanish example so you'd think it'd be settled quickly but the Mexican promotions themselves can't seem to keep it straight.

Most lucha libre enterprises tend to spell their names Faby and Mary likely because the latter is a very common name, yet it is very common to see the Apache sisters spelled Fabi and Mari instead online and in publications, likely because their their full names are Fabiola and Mariela.

It's Low Ki, not Loki, that guy's Mexican. Loki himself has sometimes been called Lucky. Also, Kawal became Kaval when he made the move from WWE's version of FCW to NXT.

While most official sources seemed to agree the wrestler's name is El Texano Jr, it is not uncommon to find the name written as Tejano Jr with a j instead, a j making a completely different sound than the one that then follows. This is confusing because Texano and Tejano were two completely different wrestlers, thus the son's lineage would suggest x.

Candice Michelle was infamous for accepting both Candace and Candice without preference, though the latter is most often accepted as the proper spelling.

This was one of the tropes that led to the downfall of Dragon Door Project. There were a dozen derivatives of the Tiger Mask and Ultimo Dragon gimmicks, including a guy going by Tyger Mask, who would later become Xtreme/Extreme Tiger.

CMLL has always used Ephesto for the former Hombre Sin Nombre but Hefesto is sometimes used by others having the Greek god in mind.

When Jennifer Blake moved from EAW to AAA, she was briefly billed as Jennifer Blade.

Radio

The name of retired syndicated radio host Neal Boortz has often been misspelled as "Neil", but he considers this spelling "wimpy".

The play "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" had audience members spell words. Sometimes audience members would be given the word "kumis", fermented goat milk. If the audience member spelled the word c-u-m-i-s, the announcer would say the correct spelling was k-u-m-i-s (both spellings are correct).

This could be deliberate, as half the comedy in the show derives from the announcer trying to eliminate audience members at any cost.

The Merchant of Venice contains a character called, depending on the editor, "Launcelot" or "Lancelot". This doesn't seem so bad...except that the folios call him "Launcelet" or "Lancelet", and spell his last name, Gobbo, alternately as "Jobbe" or "Job".

Rumpleteazer from Cats. Spelled Rumpelteazer in the original poems and on the official website, but credited as Rumpleteazer in the 1998 movie version. The -le spelling is now more common. The z is also occassionally substituted with an s.

McAvity and Tantomille are common misspellings of Macavity and Tantomile, respectively.

Satoko and Satoshi's last names are sometimes spelled "Hojo" and "Houjou".

"Onikakushi" (Demoned Away) is the first arc. "Onigafuchi" (Demon's Abyss) is what Hinamizawa used to be known as. As well as confusion between the two, the latter is sometimes spelled with a double C; this is wrong as it would imply a doubled consonant in pronunciation that's not there.

Both u's in Rena Ryugu are long, so it can be written Ryuuguu. The other common variants, "Ryuguu" and "Ryuugu", are erroneous.

Hanyuu's sword is the Onigari-no-Ryuo, or Ryuuou if you write out the long vowels. The incorrect "Ryou" is often seen.

Web Comics

A minor character in Men in Hats was called Ramath the first and only time he appeared, and called Ramas in the only other strip to refer to him.

The Order of the Stick's prequel book, Start of Darkness, revolves around the villains and often has the main villain, Xykon, correcting other people's misspelling of his name (most commonly as Zykon). It's unclear how he can recognize this, since both names are pronounced the same way, which is also lampshaded. Also, a group of adventurers attempting to hunt Xykon down wind up stumbling into the lair of a completely different villain with a similarly-spelled name. It is believed that this was author Rich Burlew's way of poking fun at the constant misspelling of Xykon's name in the comic's fan forums.

Additionally, one of the spirits involved in Vaarsuvius's Soul Splice has been referred to in the comic as both "Haera Bloodsoak" and "Haerta Bloodsoak". There has been no indication of which of these is supposed to be correct.

For some strange reason, some forum goers tend to misspell Haley's name as Hayley.

Nothing Nice To Say has a character referred to by the comic strip's creator as outside the comic as a variation of "Chris or Charlie or whatever" due to the interchangeability of his names within the strip.

The above mentioned Aeris/Aerith controversy is mentioned in thisLoserz strip.

In Blue and Blond, Blond is able to tell when people refer to him as "Blonde". Whenever this happens, it always annoys him.

Apparently part of the fanbase regularly spells Gwynn's name as "Gwen". Which is odd because not only are those two really pronounced differently, but you're reading it in the comic, not listening to it. But there you go. This may have been spoofed in the comic itself when Gwynn was being referred to as Gwen to thinly disguise her identity.

Pete Abrams himself is not good at spelling the (often punny) names of his minor characters consistently. As pointed out in the reaction forums:

"[One character] was Grammer Gorilla through 2005, then in 2007 he became Grammar gorilla. Pete never remembers how to spell his secondary characters, etc. e.g., Weaselo became Weaslo, the ship Barranca became the Baranca, Lara Kroft-Macaroni-and-Cheese became Lara Croft-Macaroni-and-Cheese, Hoggelrynth became Hoggelryth became Hogglerynth, Homnigrits became Homnygrits, Homogenize became Homogenized, Gandledorf became Gandeldorf, Feder became Fedder, Gennaro became Genarro... is it deadels or deadles?... ...shall I go on?"

In the case of Bun-bun, what people have problem with is the capitalisation. Most dialogue in the comic is written in caps, so it's not normally visible. It seems more common to assume it's "Bun-Bun", and this has even appeared in the Sluggy Store. But when it has come up in the comic itself so that you can see the difference, it has been "Bun-bun" several times.

Drow Tales: Is it Snadhya'runes or Snadhya'rune? Ven'nedia or Ven'ndia? No one knows...

The protagonists name in Lily Love has been translated as both "Donut" and "Donath".

Web Original

Happens among Noob fans. Note that the series is set in a MMORPG and basically everyone is literally walking around with their Online Alias hanging over their head, making the right spelling a Freeze-Frame Bonus at worse.

It actually applies a lot to RvB's producer. Similar to the Fall Out Boy example in the Music folder, Rooster Teeth's name gets frequently misspelled as one word ("Roosterteeth") or as a CamelCase word ("RoosterTeeth").

From Killerbunnies (the wiki), Oleander's nickname on her official image is spelled "Imogen", whereas here and her profile it's spelled "Imogene". Then again, it is possible it couldn't be spelled that way because of the character limit in the name boxes on deviantArt.

Happens a lot in Critical Role, especially with the non-player characters. Sometimes Matt clears up the spellings, but so far we've had issues with K'varn/Kavarn, Clorota/Clarota/"Clarence", Kern/Kurn, Kynan/Kainen/Kainan, and, of course, the many possible permutations of Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, which is always said Motor Mouth style - at this point the proper spelling of that is anybody's guess. Sean/Shaun/Shawn Gilmore would be more of an issue, except that everybody just calls him Gilmore.

In the episode, "Black Yoshi's Girlfriend Problem!", Yoshimeet.com, a dating website for Yoshis, is always referred to in-universe as "Yoshimeet.com with two E's." At one point in the episode, Black Yoshi logs onto Yoshimeat.com, and is horrified by what he sees (which isn't shown to the viewers).

Elita One has had her name spelled Elita-One, Elita-1, Eleta-1 and Aleta-1 officially, and a couple of more variations unofficially. This confusion was brought on because of her debute in an unwritten medium, so people could only guess what it was spelled like. Given how much the cartoon made a point of her being equal to Optimus Prime, it is somewhat odd (the correct) Elita One (Prime/One, get it?) was dismissed as a viable option for so long, although the Orion Pax-Optimus Prime & Elita One-Ariel link understandably caused "Alita"-confusion. Since those days, script material and the production bible have become available to reveal her name as Elita One, but for varying reasons her name continues to be a source of debate. Most noticeably in that is that other franchise incarnations of Elita One have their names spelled differently: Elita-One for the Movie and Transformers: Shattered Glass versions and Elita-1 for the Transformers Animated and Revenge of the Fallen versions, which may lead to trademark claims that affect the name under which another Elita One version is released.

A similar thing happened with the computer "Teletraan I", also debuting in the cartoon. Aside from the spelling, its pronunciation also varied to include "Teletron-1", a fact that was lampshaded in the series finale of Beast Wars.

Hun-Grrr has had about four different spellings of his name: Hun-Gurrr, Hun-Grrr, Hun-Grr and Hun-Garr. Canon seems to have settled on the most meaningful (guy's got some violent eating habits): Hun-Grrr.

The former spelling is the most recently used as it's a a trademark dodge, since "Tarantulas" can be interpreted as the plural of "tarantula" and thus couldn't be trademarked.

Similarly, Scorponok is often erroneously spelled Scorpinok by some, particularly because his Beast Wars incarnation was really called that in some foreign versions of the show and because one Transformers Energonepisode title card also made this blunder.

The Five-Man Band's resident computer geek in Code Lyoko is Jeremy Belpois. Or was it... Jérémie Belpois? Apparently, either spelling is acceptable, and fans of the series accept either spelling equally. It doesn't help that within the show itself, in his specific Eye Catch it is spelled "JEREMIE" in Season 1 and "JEREMY" starting Season 2.

The name of a character from the underrated movie Help! I'm a Fish... Is it Fly or Kai It's likely the first one. He turns into a flyfish once he drinks the fish potion.

Juandissimo Magnifico's first name begins with either "Ju" or "W", but even the end credits and the people making the merchandise aren't sure. Official production art from the Frederator Blog, as well as a draft script for "Wishology" refer to him as Juandissimo. Maybe that will clear things up. Considering that the character is either a Spaniard or Latino, his first name most likely derives from the Spanish name "Juan", making Juandissimo correct. Besides, ask any Spanish speaker how often they use "j" vs. "w" on a daily basis. The fact that the actual Spanish name would be "Juanissimo" creates the pun around "Wand" and "Juand".

A lot of "fans" seem to think Vicky's name is spelled "Vicki", despite "The Villain Sucks" Song clearly spelling it out at the beginning. The credits for the show's debut pilot on Oh Yeah! Cartoons also spells it that way.

Timmy Turner's Dad's Sitcom Archnemesis family is spelled as both Dinkleberg and Dinkleburg.

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers fans can't seem to decide on one spelling for the name of Gadget's Hawaiian lookalike. Technically, the spelling of her name is All There in the Manual. The problem, however, is the multitude of "manuals" which are more or less hard to come by, and which contradict each other. The Writer's Bible spells it "Lahwhinie", but the Writer's Bible was obviously hard to obtain. TV closed captioning spelled it "Louwhiney", but who has ever recorded that back in the late 80s? The DVD subtitles spell it "Lawhinie", but the Rangerphiles had to wait for a DVD release for quite a long time. It's no wonder that Fan Fic writers came up with even more spellings. Some Rangerphiles even refuse to write her full name altogether in online conversation just because they can't decide in favor of any one spelling.

A recurring visual gag in Home Movies is that Jason's last name is spelled differently every time its shown. The spellings "Panopolis", "Popodopolis", or "Penopopolis" had all been used throughout the show and the close captions for one episode even spells it "Penopolis".

Mr. Lynch's first name was revealed in one scene to be "Ronald" and in another scene to be "Donald". Both scenes occurred on the very same episode.

The name of Brendon Small's metalhead friend who composes most of the music in Brendo's movies is either, "Dwayne" or "Duane".

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! fans have several spellings for their red monkey's name, both his full name and the nickname. SPRX-77, SPRX77, Sprx, Sparks, Sparx, and there are probably a few more spellings if one looked around the fanfic archives long enough.

Kyle's surname is usually Broflovski, but it has appeared as Brovlofski, Broflofski, Brofloski, and Broflowski. While the show is notorious for discontinuity, it perhaps falls under the inconsistent spelling rules of names from Slavic nations into English.

Also, Stan's sister's name is officially spelled Shelley, but fans (and even the character filter at Fanfiction.Net) often forget the second e.

Kenny's surname is usually spelled McCormick, but the opening used from late season 4 to season 5 and the episode "Kenny Dies" used McKormick.

Mephesto's son's name is either spelled Terrence or Terrance. Some use the former spelling to differentiate him from the Canadian character.

Charles Foster Ofdensen/Offdensen/Ofdenson from Metalocalypse. Fans are starting to think Brendon Small is fucking with them on purpose.

After two seasons, Charles Foster Offdensen's name was revealed by Word of God to be spelled with TWO f's instead of one, rendering most spellings of his name in fanworks (and on this very wiki) incorrect.

From the same series, Mr. Salatcia/Selatcia/Salacia/Selacia/who freaking knows. And unlike Offdensen, there are no written confirmations one way or the other.

Dr. Rockso/Rockzo the Rock n' Roll Clown (he does cocaine) is no exception. The former is used in the first season.

The Intern, Carl, was also inconsistently spelled with a "K" during the credits. However, a later episode confirmed his name was in fact Carl, and later episodes finally began using his full name in the credits: "Carl Karl."

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the character names are in the credits (and for Aang, in the British title) but that doesn't mean that their names will occasionally go mis-spelt as 'Eyroh', 'Touf', 'Socka' and other wacky spellings.

In the episode "Superfriends", the titular 'puffs make friends with the daughter of their new next-door neighbours. She's only in the one episode, but has become a feature of many PPG fanfics (probably because of convenience; she does live right next door to them). But even ten years on, fanon still can't decide if her name is spelt Robin Schneider or Robyn Snyder (or anything in between). It's Robin Schneider in the credits and book adaptation, so that's the official spelling.

This happened to the Girls themselves, intentionally in a Cartoon Network promotional cartoon where they break into The Legion of Doom's headquarters (as in, the villains from the old Super Friends cartoon) to rescue Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Lex Luthor makes the mistake of calling them "the Powderpuff Girls"; needless to say, the three heroines are not amused.

Even within the show the girls title has been spelled "Power Puff Girls" instead of "Powerpuff Girls".

People constantly spell Lois from Family Guy name as Louis despite the fact that Louis is pronounced quite differently than Lois. Lois Lane of Superman fame gets the Louis Treatment way too often on multiple forums for it to be a simple spelling error.

American Dad!, another of Seth MacFarlane's works, gets this as well. Hayley is quite often misspelled as Haley, and Klaus sometimes gets misspelled as Claus.

Despite Apple Bloom's name hardly ever being spelled as Applebloom, many fans use the latter spelling.

The spelling of Big McIntosh's name was eventually confirmed through its use by the toyline, by show creator Lauren Faust on DeviantArt and by show writer M.A. Larson on Twitter, but the trading cards, Hasbro's My Little PonyFacebook page, The Hub's website, the closed captions for the show, and even his old European toyline releases have all spelled it as Big Macintosh. "McIntosh" is the official spelling of the apple, which works well for a pun; however, most people are more well accustomed with "Macintosh" due to the Apple Macintosh computer series, and many fans use the latter spelling.

The name of Discord's species, draconequus, has had its spelling confirmed by the trading cards, by Hasbro's My Little PonyTwitter account, and by show creator Lauren Faust on DeviantArt, but it's been spelled as Dragonokis on The Hub's website and as draconequis in the closed captions for the show.

The spelling of Nightmare Moon's name was eventually confirmed through its use by the toyline and by the trading cards, but multiple other sources have either spelled it as Night Mare Moon or flip-flopped between the two.

The name of Owlowiscious has had its spelling confirmed by his trading card by show creator Lauren Faust on DeviantArt, and by show director Jayson Thiessen on Twitter, but various other sources have spelled it as Owloysius, Owlicious, or even just Aloysius.

Princess Cadance's name has been spelled as Princess Cadence a comparatively small number of times. The spelling was apparently changed from the latter to the former late in development, as most uses of Cadence are older and a few of them were later changed to use Cadance.

And no one can decide if the name of the high class pony that befriends Rarity in Canterlot is named Fancypants or Fancy Pants.

Steven Magnet's name is spelt with a phnote i.e. Stephen Magnet in the credits of "Slice of Life" for some reason.

The short-lived official website of My Dad the Rock Star spelled the name of Willy's female friend as Alissa. Everyone else spelled it as Alyssa, which stuck given that the original site is no longer around and had low traffic when it was.

The premise of the TV show My Gym Partner's a Monkey was that Adam's last name was misspelled as Lion instead of Lyon, which is why he got sent to a school of animals.

The official spelling of T.J.'s last name is Detweiler, though Urban Dictionary (as part of the definition for Whomp) spells it as "Detwhiler"

Gus's last name is spelled Griswald in most episodes and on the merchandise. However, in two episodes, and to a few fans, it's "Griswold".

The official name for the filing assistant boy is Menlo. Some fans continue to spell it as "Menlow".

One of the biggest examples of the trope comes to the gang's fourth grade teacher. The correct spelling of her last name, as seen in the credits and merchandise is "Grotke", NOT "Grotky", "Grotkey", or "Grotki".

Before any official spelling was given, Jared's Distaff Counterpart was usually referred to fans as Cherice, Cherise (as a pun for her red/pink color scheme and the French word for "cherry"), and numerous other alternatives including the odd case of "Jarice". Adult Swim's site would later show her name to be spelled as "Sharice", while the DVDs gave the spelling of "Charise". The third season would wind up confirming the latter, though alternative fan spellings can persist. Some even Take a Third Option between "Sharice" and "Charise" and spell it "Charice".

The assistant of the Prison Mogul has been referred to by fans as Gerald, Jarrell, Jarel, or even Jarum. The season 1 DVD used "Gerald", but since his name has not been used elsewhere (and that DVD had a few grammatical errors in subtitling), it still remains a bit of debate in fanworks.

The ancient fighting civilization (in the episode "Combaticus") is referred to as "Pamelonia" on the season 1 DVD, but Adult Swim's video site uses the spelling "Pummelonia", which further enforces the pun in the name.

The Twins' father's name was either spelled "Ozal" or "Ozoe" in fansites and fanworks. The season 2 DVD and the creators confirmed its spelling to be "Ozzal".

Jacknife's name is said to be spelled with just one "k", though a few fans and even one episode have spelled it "Jack Knife".

It's understandable, given the language it's translated from (Gaelic), but The Secret of Kells's fairy girl is "Aisling", though it's pronounced like "Ashley".

Abraham Simpson is officially known as "Grampa", but a lot of people use the proper spelling when referring to him.

Shreeky from Care Bears likes to shriek, so fans spell her name as "Shrieky". The show almost never spells her name, because the credits just list all the voice actors without their characters. The official spelling does appear in the name of the second-season episode "The Wrath of Shreeky", as it appears on the title card.

The character is named "Ba Nee" not "Bonnie". Fans often get it wrong. The banner at the end of the final episode spells Ba Nee's name as "BaNee", but then again it also says "Good By".

Danse's name is sometimes spelled "Dance" by fans.

Closed captioning refers to Lin-Z by her real name, Lindsey, instead of her Stage Name.

The name of deceased mother of the main characters is pronounced "Jackie" but spelled "Jacqui".

Due to a VHS accidentally misspelling her name, many Rainbow Brite fans write Moonglow's name as "Moonglo".

SWAT Kats has this issue with a few supporting characters, a few of which still have fans preferring some spellings despite the fact they have had their official name spellings revealed, either out of stubbornness or simple preference. Three of the main offenders are as follows:

Museum curator Dr. Sinian's first name is often spelled "Abi" by fans. Due to the scarcity of behind the scenes material for the series' (at least for individual episodes), the actual spelling of her name was unknown for many years because the one model sheet featuring her had her full name annoyingly obscured behind a Cartoon Network water mark. However, the recent book The Art of SWAT Kats (given to Patreon supporters) features behind the scenes material from "The Deadly Pyramid," explicitly spelling her name "Abby Sinian."

Ann Gora's cameraman Jonny often has his name spelled "Johnny," despite the series' main models and the season two voice credits spelling it without an "H."

Commander Feral's treacherously incompetent second in command insists, in "The Wrath of Dark Kat," that his name is spelled "with two Es," meaning it'd be "Steel." However, when we see the nameplate on his desk in "Enter the Madkat," it's spelled "Steele." Unlike the above two examples, as yet there are no Word of God or All There in the Manual answers.

Whether Chuckie's and Kimi's fathers name is "Chas" or "Chaz" depends on the source.

Life With Loopy: The title character's real name was spelled as "Lupecia" by series creator Stephen Holman in a 1998 interview with Nickelodeon Magazine. However in the 2007 book Not Just Cartoons, Nicktoons!, her name is spelled as "Loopecia". Her name was never shown written on-screen in the show. Most fans lean toward the former as the "official" spelling, as it's how the creator spells it.

Some listings for Mike, Lu & Og spell Mike's full name, Michelanne, as Michelle, Lu's name as Lou, and Og's name as Ogg.

Mertle Edmonds' first name is often misspelled as the more common "Myrtle" with a y. Even IMDb uses this spelling for their character page on her.

Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Depending on the source material, version, and/or translation of said material, Captain Foxx's first name is spelled Zachary, Zachery, or even Zacharias. His wife gets the same treatment, as her name is spelled Eliza or Alisa depending on the source.

Steven Universe has Centipeetle, who's name is commonly misspelled Centipeedle. In closed captions and official sources, it's the former. Doesn't help that Aivi Tran (one of the main composers) used the latter spelling during her and Surasshu's AMA.

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